Nightmare Moon vs. OC

by TundraStanza

Ch. 6: Forty-Three, Discord, Nightmare, Hike!

---{#51}

Several light arrows bombarded my position. Though, they weren't difficult to dodge. An angry opponent was fairly easy to read. Apparently, something in the fusion entity thought it would be funny if it only infected my opponent.

I really don't like the circumstance right now, I thought.

It was probably Forty-three. She really had it out for me and I couldn't understand why.

Dodge left, blast a little and shoot one of the small metal bars off her belt, and... the Quincy is right behind me now. Super.

I mean sure, I was kind of responsible for sniffing out the traitor and bringing her in for Queen Chrysalis to deal with. But, the few cases that I had actually managed to find were all dead now. They didn't really have anything left to complain about or gain from putting me down.

Okay, seriously. Stop getting peppered in the legs by stray arrows. The holes in your legs are there for efficiency purposes. They aren't your liberty sign to make more. You have wings, Fifty-one. Fly!

I sighed at my lack of reaction at the deaths of fellow members of the Hive. I really needed to get another coaching conversation from Spirit Redeemer once this whole situation was over. My empathy wasn't a sickness to be cured. It was meant to balance the numb side of my natural personality.

And one smack, two smacks, three smacks... uppercut!

Oh, look at that. Quincy Twilight's rage was fading, as well as the scent of any emotional capacity. Darn.

Winner: Changeling Drone #51!

I closed my eyes and let out a soft hiss. I wasn't even aware of the platform's motion until it slammed into our entrance island. I couldn't look at my allies right now. So, I simply walked to one side of the first island and sat in silence.

"Next!"

"No, don't!" pleaded Spike. I feared that the scent of his sadness would push me over the edge if it had any more potency. "She's the only one left! I... can't lose Twilight like this."

"Spike..." said the remaining Twilight. In spite of not knowing this dragon personally, her sadness carried a similar weight to his own. Their combined feelings felt like solid weights against my insides. It was all I could do to stay in place without collapsing.

"Not a problem. We'll just overturn that pesky hesitation."

A snap echoed through the space. Spike held his hands against his head and grunted. The scent of rage pooled in from the fused entity into him. He almost looked like he was... growing. Every physical part of him was getting extra length. The somewhat larger dragon opened his glowing red eyes.

"Oh... shoots," muttered Rainbow Dash.

"In fact, why stop there?"

Another snap passed and Twilight yelped. Some red magic was literally pulling her apart. In what sounded like bubbles popping, the separated parts vanished from sight. I couldn't even sense her emotion anymore. I opened my mouth in shock.

The dragon took this event worse than I did. He raised his maw high and roared. I was smelling potent and pungent rage. I couldn't tell where his draconic rage ended and the unnatural entity's rage began.

"Oh that's just fan-tipping-flastic!" shouted Dill Anne Shear sarcastically.

"I should have known a Discord monster wouldn't follow any rules," Rainbow remarked.

"Rules? The only rule set above me is to face the champion. I can't help it if my competitors are poor sports in the meantime."

"You know darn well that you instigated that!" shouted Tundra.

"We need a new plan of attack," I advised.

"Let's try this new plan that I like to call 'Attack'!" shouted Rainbow as both she and Tundra drew forth their swords.

"Bankai!"

"Bankai!"

Their fury burned my senses as something else visibly burned the air around them. It looked like they had clothed themselves in robes, while the weapons they were carrying completely changed shapes. With the sound of rushing wind in stereo, the 'Soul Reapers' vanished out of sight. Pretty soon, they were rushing around this way and that in the vast space around the fusion entity. Within seconds, they were launching a barrage of ice and energy.

"I guess it's swordfight time," commented Dill Anne.

She held on her hoof what looked like a card. But in a flash of light, it was quickly replaced by a long, fencing sword. I could smell she was nervous yet simultaneously determined. Taking the hint, I kicked out a small item from the underside of my leg. With a few twists of my head, I had a crooked dagger in between my teeth. Spirit Redeemer had called it the "Unobtainium Dagger" that she had used to put the soul of her late father to rest. She told me that she dared not use it again because she preferred the path of no violence. She thought I might be able to make better use of it and told me to hold onto it.

Let's go. I nodded at Dill Anne, knowing she couldn't hear my thoughts.

Her scent of determination didn't falter. We flapped our respective wings and sped forth to join our allies' assault. A sort of smoked, lion's paw reached out and snagged Tundra in mid-flight. I acted on impulse and focused my destruction beam against the fusion entity's wrist. I then flew in close and dug my dagger into the same spot. Tundra managed to fly out of the opening paw, however, her robe was in tatters.

Meanwhile, Dill Anne had used the entity's moment of flinching to swing her thin sword at several different points of the face in rapid succession. It almost looked like there were sparks flying off the tip of her sword as she swung it extremely quickly.

"Parry Breaker: Hundred-Year Judgement!" she cried just as the last of her strikes made contact. The fusion entity grabbed its face with both distorted limbs and let out a beastly cacophony of yowling.

"Yah!" Rainbow yelped.

I looked toward her when I smelled surprise and panic. That was from Rainbow anyway. But the dragon that was now standing on top of her was still fuming with the sinister rage. Before anypony or anyling could react, Spike chomped down his maw and... swallowed Rainbow whole. Horror eclipsed anything else that I could smell coming from Dill Anne as we all watched Rainbow get eaten. But, there was something else.

"RD!" exclaimed Tundra as she tried to fly in. But there was an intense rage coming from inside the dragon's throat.

"Wait!" I held a hoof in front of her. My ears perked up at the sound of some muffled yellings. Though, when the attack wave burst through Spike's neck, I heard something much more coherent.

"... Tenshou!"

Injured in a central nervous hub, Spike slapped his limbs around at randomly everything, including the edge of the island where there was no arena to stand on. I smelled panic, and the dragon was biting hard onto the wing of the pegasus trying to escape. It had barely been two seconds before they fell completely beyond sight and smell.

"Shall we move onto the semi-finals?"

I couldn't believe this. None of this entity's injuries were even visible anymore. What kind of regeneration did it have?

"First match: Me vs. You!"

Before I knew it, the misshapen paws were squeezing all around me. Spirit's dagger was choked from my mouth as I tried to breathe. But its unyielding rage clogging my senses was making the simple task difficult.

"I've been waiting a long time for this, Fifty-first! I'm stronger than you now!"

---{Kazekage Sode no Shirayuki}

"Eat this!" I yelled as I held up my hooves. I doubled my output into a twin plume of crashing blue flames. Off to the side, I saw Dill Anne releasing a burst of lightning from her hoof in a punching motion. The abomination flinched against our attacks.

"Begone!"

A large tail suddenly whipped out of nowhere and knocked some of the wind out of me. I went for a tumble along the floating island. I slowly stood back up, using my fold-up fans to hold me up. I breathed loudly heavily as I looked around. My Bankai form's robes were stripped down to a tattered white rag and there was a slight ringing in my ears.

Dill Anne was holding herself up on all fours, but just barely. Her reiatsu had been reduced quite a bit through this battle. I wasn't sure how much any of us had left to give. Somewhere between us, a single knife rested.

Wait... I gasped.

I looked up at the entity's squeezing paws. The changeling's spiritual pressure was fading fast.

"Fifty-one!" I shouted.

He coughed. "If this were a video game, I'd be saying something sappy like, 'I'm always with you.' But... I'll just settle for... give 'em hell."

His reiatsu vanished completely, as did his physical body. Son of a gun! This thing was destroying everyone! We had to take it down. But there was only one way I was going to be able to release a full-powered strike with my diminishing strength.

"Dill Anne, how would you feel about providing a distraction for at least a minute?" I asked.

She held quiet for a moment.

...

"Make it thirty seconds." She slapped her tail against the ground and a tall crystal pillar grew.

I clasped my hooves against each other as I readied the incantation. "Mask of flesh and blood, universe soar. The one crowned with man's name..."

She sank into her tower's shadow. I could still sense her reiatsu. But, I couldn't distract myself right then.

"Carriage of thunder, bridge of a spinning wheel with light, divide this into six."

She performed her Parry Breaker motion into her tower, sending a bunch of dark crystal shards to shower against the entity.

"Carve a twin lotus into the wall of blue flame and await the blazing fires to reach the distant heavens."

The yellow and blue energies gathered and spun around between my hooves. The entity's paw smacked Dill Anne to the side again. Her sword disappeared and was replaced by a card. Now was the time!

"Bakudo #61: Rikujokoro!" The yellow light sprang out and formed six giant lights resembling flower petals. They slammed against the entity's mid-section. The entity growled.

"Hado #73: Soren Sokatsui!" The blue twin fires burned even brighter and quicker than my first try with them. The full force collided with the abomination, causing it to roar in its demonic screech.

---{Tundra Stanza}

My robes faded away. My Zanpaktou returned to its white katana form. I was breathing fairly hard right then.

"You know, I should really thank you."

My whole body suddenly contorted and slid into the air. I opened my eyes wide because I wasn't doing this. My reiatsu was too drained for me to fight against the pull, not for lack of trying.

"Darn it," I muttered between grunts. "That was... my strongest blast."

"To be fair, you did kill me... well, one-third of me anyway."

The pulling force turned my head around and I got a look at the entity. It was somewhat smaller, and the colors were a bit more distinct than the indescribable abomination that it had started out as. I could even see eyeballs.

"I no longer have to follow the whims of that annoying changeling Forty-three. Her fixation on Fifty-one was very distracting. Though, I'm curious... do you want to know what he felt like in his last moments?"

I could feel my ribs getting crushed by whatever power the incomplete entity commanded. My eyelids were forced shut. There was little choice I had but to moan against the intense pain.

"Ah ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha- Wha?!"

Something collided with me and I suddenly felt no pressure except the wind passing me by. I cracked my eyes open to see the head of some pony. I wasn't sure what was going on until she set me down on some part of the island.

"D...Dill Anne?" I croaked.

"I'm afraid she's out for the moment," said a different voice while the Nightmare pony's head shook. "Stay over here near the portal for now and try not to move."

"Wait, who... are... you?" The last breath of mine I heard softened at the same time that I could see no more.

---{Nightmare Spectrum}

As Tundra fell asleep from the fatigue, I set her down. There wasn't time to reminisce about who I was, where I came from, and how I was controlling Dill Anne's body. I had a fragment of the Nightmare to retrieve, and it was sitting cozy against the inside of another world's Discord. I punched my hooves together with a little spark. Then, I became a blur.

I raced around the negatively energized draconequus. I took twists, turns, and loops wherever I could. All the while, I punched lightning into any spot I considered vulnerable and open. The electricity surged all around him. I hoped it was going through him, too.

What happened next, I'm not sure how it happened. There was a loud snap. Suddenly, all of my legs were trapped inside a giant potato. Nearby, I spotted a light bulb that had wires that plugged into this very potato. A switch was pulled and I felt like I was getting electrified in reverse. I wish I could make up stuff like that, but such was only possible in Discord's imagination and practice.

The potato vanished, and I had been drained like a battery for a temporary light bulb. I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer as I fell. All I could think was a sarcastic remark telling Posh not to screw this up.

---{Pony of Shadows}

...

The wings opened wide in this vast space of darkness.

...

I drew some strength of these extra shadows into small, deadly stars.

...

Nightmare Chaos did not like getting stabbed with my improvised shuriken.

...

Its retort was to summon a giant pair of snapping fingers.

...

I was flung back to the island.

...

I begged that somepony besides the red demon would take my place.

---{Star Bright}

Well, I honestly didn't think I'd actually be doing this. I was joking when I said that I'd control this body some day. Yet here I was. Though, I was grateful for the previous actors. They managed to take down even the mighty Discord a few pegs. He was too busy pulling shadow stars out of his eyes to notice me casting a personal favorite spell of mine.

He himself did not have a cutie mark. I was more interested in the talent of the Nightmare fragment that was our objective. He grunted in rejection, but my spell pulled ever harder. I heard a slightly more feminine wail as the crescent mark came to me and the rest of the Nightmare fragment followed it. Flowing it down to let the demon's tail absorb it felt as easy as breathing.

"Thank you for your patronage," I said with a bow of my head.

The draconequus' eyes went blank. With a few cracks here and there, he shattered like glass. Without the fused powers of the other two universes, a draconequus that had previously been killed could not hold himself among the living. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The area around me started to rumble.

---{Dilan Shier}

Nice work, kid, I thought with a small smile.

The ground shaking wasn't the only crazy thing happening. Bodies started coming back and reconfiguring themselves in the proper places. Soon, I could see the sleeping forms of Princess Twilight, her Quincy double, their Earth-verse triplet, the Soul Reaper Rainbow Dash, Spike, and Fifty-one.

Some bits of the island were falling apart at the edges. We needed to get out of here before this space collapsed entirely. I took a deep breath, grunted, and applied my levitation training from Star Bright. One by one, I floated all of them through the portal. I jumped through just in time for the center of the island to fall apart.

---
Canterlot Castle, Throne Room...

I landed on the red carpet, with a bit of a slippery entrance. I looked around, expecting to be somewhere in the middle of a pony pile. However, I could only see Spike, Princess Twilight, and Princess Celestia and Luna. The last two in that list were still holding that dome open. Princess Twilight managed to grunt and stand up.

"That was... a bit more life-shattering than I would have liked," she commented.

"Ugh..." Spike rubbed his head before taking a quick look around. "Hey! Where'd everypony else go?"

"What the...?" I was busy looking at the portal dome. I was seeing a couple different images at the top and bottom. It kind of looked like the belted Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Tundra were in the top image, shaking their heads and looking around. In the lower image, Fifty-one and the other wingless Twilight were getting asked by a guard if they were okay.

"Does this mean that the worlds are properly separating again?" asked Princess Twilight.

Finally, all of the ponies and changeling in the image turned to look our way. Each of them smiled and waved. I couldn't help but do the same to them. I guess Princess Twilight and Spike couldn't help it either as they waved, too. After about a few more seconds of that, the images faded. The dome collapsed, and the other two alicorns in the room sat on their respective haunches while panting.

I sighed and fell onto my back.

"Splendid work, Dilan," complimented Princess Celestia after recovering her breath.

Princess Luna tilted her head. "Why did you fall?"

I closed my eyes. "I don't know."
---